These "hero's POV" novels are fairly popular for big fantasy/romance series, and I generally don't get much out of them. Any original novels attain poThese "hero's POV" novels are fairly popular for big fantasy/romance series, and I generally don't get much out of them. Any original novels attain popular status because the author was already talented with expressing the emotions of their creations, so seeing it from the other side just adds a little nuance, rarely anything genuinely new. 'Cassiel's Servant' isn't far from that formula - exactly what you'd presume, it's a victory lap for a much beloved character - and would be a poor starting place for the thorny political intrigue filling Kushiel's Dart since it clocks in at merely half of that tome's weight. But ahhh, that little bit of nuance is especially delicious when you do wholeheartedly love that character, and Joscelin was never allowed to speak his own voice, being much a man of action instead.
I didn't re-read any of the original trilogy before starting this one, but did pick up the first of the sequel trilogy a few months ago, in which Joscelin is older and wiser and settled in peaceably with his gods-touched love, years of quiet in between the trauma of those first 3 books and the present. 'Cassiel's Servant' feels a lot like that mature Joscelin has settled down to write his memoirs, as though he's viewing things from a distance and documenting the events for history. In his own voice, he cannily avoids revealing the specifics of the Casseline Brotherhood's training traditions that outsiders cannot know, he notes precisely which historic personages were present at key events, he gently rues his own stiff neck and outrage at Phedre's courtesanery, he's judicious if not outright prim about mentioning any details of their lovemaking. Joscelin's voice didn't belong in 'Kushiel's Dart' - Phedre's story through and through - but without him she "would have died a dozen times over" as she recounts in this book's end, and it's lovely to hear from him this time. ...more
Halfway through 'Peace Talks' (which had vanishingly little to do with any actual talking re: peace), a plot began to emerge, and I was rather confuseHalfway through 'Peace Talks' (which had vanishingly little to do with any actual talking re: peace), a plot began to emerge, and I was rather confused as to how any of this was going to get wrapped up in the scant pages left, and the answer was simply that it didn't.
Halfway through the far more aptly named 'Battle Ground,' I was confused if anything was going to happen other than this "greatest hits of the Dresdenverse" battle, and the answer was similarly simply nope. This book spends 400 pages running all over a war zone over the course of not quite one day, with one supernatural group after the other taking turns pummeling the new bad guys, and no resolution of any of that plot stuff that started happening in the first half of the story. There's zero reason for this to have been two books, but about a dozen reasons for this to have been trimmed into shape by a heartless editor. By the end, it feels that Butcher decided he'd painted himself into corners he no longer wanted to be constrained by, so just smashed up the playing field to pivot the rest of the series in a wholly different direction.
The worst part about it is how much I genuinely like Butcher's writing and so many of these characters. I breezed right through this book in 2 half-days, because it's so comfortable to curl up and spend time with these guys. Sad, little, underestimated, wimpy Butters becoming more than a stereotyped sidekick and stepping up into heroism-even-when-it's-hard legit makes me tear up. The cinematic sweep of the battle descriptions is absolutely compelling. But the total lack of a meaty story, the meaningless (possibly expedient, or even convenient, and that's really ugly) death, the overlong ad-nauseum ass-kickery, the nutty arbitrariness of too many decisions on either the author's or the main character's part... Meh. Just meh. ...more
Loading...
